Top 10 Unused Commissions (#10)
Here’s one for my cranial sacral, Jungian healer friend. She’s disappeared into a masters of social work and hasn’t been back since…
Holy ven imagery batman!
April 11, 2012
Obama my Bama
With colour and without.
March 21, 2012
Immaculate Cookies
Every once in a while a piece of graphic design or illustration jumps out at you and stops you in your tracks.
In the small Spanish town of Ronda, there are a group of nuns in a convent who have been baking and selling the same recipes since 1662. The above image comes from a bag of their flat eccle cookies that were to die-and-go-to-heaven for. My wife, son and I ate them until our stomachs ached.
The nuns sold the goods through a revolving door at the side of the church. You could not see the sisters. You had to put your money on a lazy Suzan and spin it so the money side faced into the convent. A few moments of garbled spanish later, the platform would come back with the cookies on it. I’m thinking of the Jesus-whipping-the-market-people is the reason for this wonderfully concealed exchange.
The Latin in the design loosely translates to, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God”.
I love that the hand is holding a sword that morphs into some sort of grain.
January 25, 2012
If At First You Don’t Succeed…
Joe Heroun from The New Republic commissioned this portrait of Presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney. “You again?”
Ooohhh-Bama. What a fun time we live in.
December 15, 2011
Have Been Like Old Times
My old bandmate, Michael Barlcay is up to something. Apart from being a rock star new dad, ECW Press is releasing a new edition of his tome of CanRock essential reading, Have Not Been the Same.
To commemorate that, a tribute album was assembled, featuring artists covering the music discussed in the book. This includes Richard Parry of Arcade Fire, Kevin Drew of BSS, Jill Barber, Great Lake Swimmers, Cuff the Duke and more. They tackle material by Sloan, Grapes of Wrath, the Hip, Art Bergman, the Rheostatics–hell, even Men Without Hats.
Look for the album at Zunior.com. All proceeds go to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
I donated my services on the album artwork featured above. It’s super challenging to create an image that will work at a 1 inch scale. Such is the internet.
To purchase the album click:
December 12, 2011
Satellite Location
Nick Craine Illustration has opened up a satellite office (on the other side of the room).
My good friend, Uli Walle at Old World Woodworking just has delivered this stunning addition to my office. His shop mate, Hemmann built this beautiful maple standing drawing table. This lovely piece is sure to give my knees and back a long long life in this business.
Best of all it lights up!!!
August 31, 2011
Student with ipod
The Briarpatch is one of Canada’s oldest uninterrupted independent publications founded in 1973. The subheading is, “Fighting the War on Error”. This cover was commissioned for their education issue. I was going for that line between vulnerability and put-on street tough.
August 31, 2011
Distress the Process
William S. Burroughs in a drawing experiment where form meets content.
August 31, 2011
A Love Supreme
The world renown Guelph Jazz Festival held it’s annual art auction fundraiser curated by Renaan Issacs this summer. My contribution to the collection was this portrait of John Coltrane. Clearly I was cherry picking for a subject. In the end the piece was purchased by the festivals artistic director, Ajay Heble.
August 31, 2011
“Do you have it in brown?”
The coolest music festival in Canada commissioned an illustration for their 26th year. Fantastic art director, Gareth Lind was the quarterback between the me, the concept and the Hillside Festivals board of directors. In keeping with the community roots philosophies of the festival, the idea was to create an image of the aboriginal turtle island myth. Drawing 1 is the first attempt which was turned down unanimously. Everyone knew the image would instantly be referred to as the “Nemo” poster. Back to the drawing board for what turns out to be a far more interesting drawing of the Ontario painted turtle. Interestingly, the scale of the 2 animals is nowhere apparent. Sea turtles grow to a girth of 400 lbs while the Canadian relatives average a mere 4 inches length.
